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"You got off easy. You should've seen Air Temple Island when Tenzin broke up with me."
"Not something to brag about."
Speak of the devil and that wretched, arrogant beast is bound to show up right behind you. Or how does the saying go again?
Lin only turned her head halfway at first after unsuccessfully biting back her grin
"It was a fairly substantial emergency situation" she said
"What'd you do?" Mako narrowed his eyes
"I didn't technically intend to do anything."
"She got upset and cracked the ground a little" Tenzin beat her to the details "You get overwhelmed and your bending gets out of control ,we've all been there ,granted. And then- she didn't stop" he continued.
Lin rolled her eyes.
"And uprooted a... number of trees." He shot her a look she could feel through her hair.
"And brought down a tower." More insistently said so.
His eyes got all the more judgemental with that sharpness of his "And almost broke my leg."
"Bullshit." She bit back the same second "That last part was never even a- no." She scoffed it off with a light lick of her upper lip. She herself hated how defensive she sounded, as if the mere suggestion that she would ever hurt Tenzin hurt her integrity "Nobody was physically hurt. Who do you think I am? The only damage was property. Some restoration work."
"Hefty restoration work" Tenzin muttered.
"Funded by Fire Nation reparations" she argued. "It didn't even touch your pockets ,come on."
It had been a shock value incident more than anything.
The practical benefit, admittedly, was that the tower she'd happened to bring down housed Tenzin's bedroom.
Which had also, in a way, been her bedroom.
She'd had her own rooms, certainly there once but still. Never used them
So what if she'd wanted to make absolutely sure there wasn't a scenario where some woman she hadn't even met yet ended up sleeping in her damn bed?
"Besides," Lin continued, "that's a lot of criticism from a man who didn't utter a word the day it happened."
Tenzin looked away a little sheepishly.
"In the moment, I didn't feel particularly entitled to."
"Let's go back to that mindset." She encouraged "Think carefully about why I was entirely justified and stop whining."
Mako barked out a laugh.
"As for Korra..." Lin turned back to him. "She's the Avatar. This is light work. Thank every spirit you can think of. And never do such a thing in my station what if she did happen to react"
...
"Why are you even here?" she asked without looking at Tenzin as the rest of the room inevitably filtered away to their work.
"There's a meeting this afternoon you're involved in."
"A councilman is an envoy now too, Tenzin? You overwork yourself. That noble heart of yours..." She started so very patronizing in mockery
"Fine, fine. I got it." He waved a hand "I wanted to see you."
"Whatever for?"
"I haven't seen you in a long time."
That was hardly true, but she let him continue.
"And recently my wife said how afraid she'd have been if I lost my bending. You lost yours." His voice remained matter-of-factly as tenzins always was "Then you got it back. I realized I never actually asked how you were with all of that. I see you very rarely these days."
He managed only so much before inevitably adding
"And the Water Tribes are becoming an issue, so we need a meeting." Cause Tenzin only ever had logical backing for all of his desicions ,of course.
"I'll be there," she said simply. After a breath, she asked, "What do you think will happen with the kids?"
"Korra's got issues more serious than that," he replied, meeting her eyes and after a second saying "They're not us, Lin."
"I know that" she nodded and a flicker of offense painted her face at the implication. "They're not us," she echoed. "But we weren't kids when we separated."
They were grown adults. More than grown. They actually had no business dragging it out the way they had, something that had always been meant to end. Any wise person (and these two would have loudly claimed to be the wisest of all) would have ended it years earlier. Tenzin should have been out in the world, living freely while he waited for the inevitable settling down and raising the next generation of airbenders. Lin should have cut it off herself also. She knew he wanted things she would never give him. It had been a waste of her time...
But they hadn't.
Even in their early twenties, they would try to walk away, live their separate lives, only to find each other again on some meeting or other and they couldn't. It never went away. No matter what they did, it never fucking went away. They were so good together. Far from perfect, but they fit so nicely.
And you'd have to face the reality that conversations with no one else were as good. And trust with no one else is half as sure. And happiness with anyone else isn't half as good.
So they stayed together far too long. Maybe because they had met as children, they had handled that mature, inevitable breakup like children would - badly.
Throwback
That finally released some of the tension coiled in her chest. She looked around: the island was still hazy with sand particles drifting through the air making it look a bit like fog. They were mostly alone out here so everyone was alright.
One of her final thrusts had knocked Tenzin flat on his back. Only now did she see him pushing himself up… and for a second she thought he was limping. A closer look proved he was perfectly fine. Not that he wouldnt have deserved a little bruise.
"Better now?" he spat. He sounded angry, upset, and yet still far too fond, maybe even too sad, to truly yell at her. He had never been one for shouting anyway.
It was a rhetorical question, but she let out a short breath and answered anyway. "Yeah. A bit." She knew her mocking sincerity would only irritate him more
"Spirits' sakes, Lin" he muttered, still looking around. Frustrated... To a degree
"Dont you dare act like I'm insane" she shot back. "You're the one breaking up with me to go pursue a marriage with- who was it again?" The audacity of him even mentioning her name. To her face. What kind of bastard does that?
"It's not for her, its- " He moved closer to her "It's our time, Lin. And she… just sped it up."
Wait a second - what was that?
The jealousy burned down every part of her body. She wondered if it would ever stop.
"How exactly" she raised her voice and eyebrows both in disbelief "did she speed us up?" Had he slept with her?
"Oh, fuck no" Tenzin only managed to say through his baffled state ,much saying in itself As if I ever would "Be realistic."
"Tenzin." She warned. "...What'd she do?"
"She didn't do anything," it left him almost entirely on an exhale. "She's not... Lin, it's not anything. And I don't want to say that to anyone else because she's a nice woman who I will do right by. I picked her because I believe she will do right by me. She looked me in the eye and said how much she believes in my- I don't remember, and that she loves me. And that she understands what the right thing will be. It will be the most passionless endeavour my marriage, as we've known it would ever be."
"We've known?" She scoffed.
"Yes. Because we've known it wasn't going to be with you. Since that first real conversation when we were- what, seventeen?" He wasn't too pleased with the logic of it either. "We knew it wasn't going to be us. And if it can't be us, it's bound to be nothing at all."
She looked deep into those eyes of his, silently screaming: Don't you dare say that. Don't you fucking dare make this sound loving to me. Let me be mad.
"Fuck off" she breathed out and started to walk past him.
"It's always going to be you, you know," he said unceremoniously. She could feel through the earth that he wasn't even turning to face her. Both of them stood with their backs to one another. He wasn't stopping her - he was simply saying it. The plainest truth between them.
She should have broken him whole.
...And more than that, what kind of skank, all respect granted, went about confessing love to a taken man?
Do right by her ,imma do right by her ,if she's in jail you won't.
...This can't possibly actually be how they end things. They'll be fine, she knew. It'll be fine.